An Atari 8-bit Home Computer Review: War Room

War Room is a new, fast-action, shoot ’em up arcade game for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. The game was written by Rob Schlortt and Eric Henneke. It was released on Halloween, October 31, 2017.

War Room – Title Screen

From the game manual:

You have 3 bullets left in your clip and your are locked in the War Room with a deadly adversary. In addition to the cunning killer there is also deadly, life sapping slime that grows as time passes. You must beat your opponent three times for final victory.

Basically, it’s kill or be killed! Shoot your opponent before they shoot you. Additional bullets randomly appear around the War Room for players to pick up, but you can only have up to ten bullets in your clip at any time. Hint – even if you have a full clip of ten bullets, you can keep you opponent from acquiring more bullets by running into them. And watch out for that life draining slime!

War Room has good graphics and sound. You have a large cast of characters to choose from, including some Halloween-themed characters, if you can find them! The character designs and animations are very nice. The controls are responsive, though the inertia-influenced movement takes a little getting used to.

Halloween-themed battle: Frank -vs- Drac

The CPU vs CPU mode makes for a nice demo.

For all 48K Atari 8-bit home computers. For zero to two players. Requires one Atari-compatible joystick per player. You can’t beat the price, the game and a brief instruction manual can be downloaded for free from the Atari 8-bit Computer forum on the AtariAge website.

Bill is a software engineer. He designs and develops cloud-based software solutions. He resides in NJ with his wife Lucy and their dog Yoda. In his spare time, he likes to tinker with game programming, 8-bit computers and the classic arcade machines of his youth.